"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the
animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel
nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest
lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams, (1722-1803)

Marco Rubio’s camp is firing back at Sen David Vitter (R-The Best Little Whorehouse In D.C.).After Vitter said Rubio was “nuts” for wanting to pass an immigration
reform bill, a “source close to Rubio” sent an unsolicited e-mail to Politico: “David Vitter has done some nuttier things in his life.” READ MORE »

Hey, did you guys hear this not at all completely hypothetical and
fictional and made up (that is what “fictional” means) story about how
Barack Obama is personally going to tear down Ronald Reagan’s childhood
home with his bare black hands? So he can put his presidential library
on it? Why would he even need a presidential library? What is he, some
kind of “celebrity”? Oh, right, the story is hypothetical and fictional
and made up and isn’t gonna happen? But Newsmax and Fox News and the conservative guy at Mediaite reported that it is? Imagine that. Here is the lede to Marti Lotman’s story in Newsmax.

The University of Chicago Medical Center has announced
plans to turn Ronald Reagan’s childhood home in Chicago into a parking
lot for President Barack Obama’s library.

Would you believe every single word in that lede is wrong? Whaaaaa? READ MORE »

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

If ever there were a moment for Democrats to press their political
advantage, this is it. Their message on many of the biggest national
issues — taxes, guns, education spending, financial regulation — has
widespread support, and they have increased their numbers in both houses
of Congress. But after years of being out-yelled by strident right-wing
ideologues, too many in the Democratic Party still have a case of
nerves, afraid of bold action and forthright principles.

That’s particularly evident in the Senate, which the party controls. Last week, Democrats had a rare opportunity to change the Senate’s rules by majority vote
and reduce the routine abuse of the filibuster by Republicans, which
has allowed a minority to slow progress to a crawl. But there weren’t
enough Democrats to support real reform, so a disappointing half-measure
was approved. The reason was fear: Fear that they might return to the
minority one day, fear that a weakened filibuster might hurt them, fear
that Republicans might change the rules to the disadvantage of Democrats
if they regain a majority.

Similarly, fear is preventing many Democrats from fully embracing
President Obama’s sensible and long-overdue proposals on curbing gun
violence. A proposal to require background checks on all gun buyers —
the top priority of most gun-control groups because of its effect on
handgun proliferation — is beginning to win strong bipartisan support.
But Democrats from swing states — including Harry Reid of Nevada, the
majority leader — are backing away from a bill
to ban semiautomatic assault weapons, and it is not clear if the Senate
will vote to prohibit high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Senate Democrats are not even united
on the obvious need to raise additional tax revenues as part of budget
agreements to reduce the deficit. Though Senator Charles Schumer of New
York is pushing to raise more revenue through tax reform, Max Baucus of
Montana, who leads the tax-writing Finance Committee, has resisted the
idea.

Mr. Baucus, who has also expressed skepticism about an assault-weapons
ban, comes from a state that supported Mitt Romney last year, as do most
of the other nervous Democrats. It’s true that the growing support for
gun-control measures and for higher taxes on the rich is not spread
evenly across the country, and that the party’s majority in the Senate
is precarious.

But senators have an obligation to lead public opinion, not to follow it
blindly. Hunters in red states know full well that a semiautomatic
weapon bristling with military features is unnecessary to bring down a
deer or a duck. If Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, who just
won re-election comfortably, were to make that case, he might change a
few minds, given his unquestionable support for Second Amendment rights.

If Mr. Manchin explained that such a ban was anything but a “gun grab,”
people would pay attention. Instead, though he supports background
checks, he will not endorse anything further.

After four years of timidity, Senate Democrats say they will finally
vote on a budget this year, no longer afraid to stand up for higher tax
revenues and targeted spending increases. That is a sign of progress,
but it remains to be seen how strong a budget will pass and how many
Democrats will back it.

Politicians play in a rugged arena and are understandably obsessed about
losing power. But that power needs to be used for something other than
perpetual re-election. The next two years will challenge lawmakers of
both parties to demonstrate that they came to Washington for a purpose.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) caught National Rifle
Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre in a significant
contradiction during Wednesday’s hearing on preventing gun violence.
Since the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut the nation’s most influential
gun lobby has opposed the growing bipartisan push for universal
background checks, arguing that such a policy would infringe on the
Second Amendment rights of law abiding Americans. But as Leahy pointed
out, the group has supported the reasonable background checks in the
past. Under current law, gun purchasers buying firearms from federally
licensed dealers are subject to background checks. As a result, more
than 2 million applicants have been prohibited from purchasing guns.
Unfortunately, 40 percent of firearm acquisitions are from individuals
who are not licensed gun dealers and do not undergo any background
checks. Gun safety advocates have sought to close the loophole for years
and in the 1999, the NRA backed this effort. “We think it is reasonable to provide mandatory, instant criminal
background checks for every sale at every gun show,” LaPierre said during a hearing held on May 27, 1999,
in the wake of the Columbine High School shooting. “No loopholes
anywhere for anyone. That means closing the Hinckley loophole so the
records of those adjudicated mentally ill are in the system.” Leahy pressed LaPierre on why the organization has since changed its mind:

LEAHY: Do you still, as you did in 1999, still support mandatory background checks at gun shows? Yes or no? LAPIERRE: We support the national check system on dealers. We were
here when one of your colleagues held the hearings in terms of who would
be a dealer and who would be required to have a license. If you did it
for live the good and profit, yes. If you did it for a hobby, no. [...]LEAHY: You do not support background checks in all instances at gun shows?LAPIERRE: We do not, because the fact is, the law right now is a failure the way it is working.
You have 76,000 people that have been denied under the present law.
Only 44 were prosecuted. You are letting them go. They’re walking the
street. LEAHY: Back in 1999, you said no loopholes anywhere for anyone. But
now you do not support a background checks for all buyers of firearms? LAPIERRE: The system the way it is working now is a failure. This administration is not prosecuting the people they catch.
22 states are not even putting the mental records of those adjudicated
incompetent into the system. If they try to buy a gun, even if you catch
them, and they try to walk away, you let them. They are criminals,
homicidal maniacs, can’t mentally ill — and mentally ill. We all know
that, maniacs and the mentally insane do not abide by the law.

While NRA leadership opposes universal background checks, its members back the change. A national survey
conducted by Johns Hopkins University found that “89 percent of all
respondents, and 75 percent of those identified as NRA members, support
universal background checks for gun sales. Similar surveys by Pew
Research Center and Gallup have also found background checks to be by
far the most popular gun control proposal in the aftermath the school
shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.”

Gayle Trotter, the conservative activist who became the breakout star of Wednesday’s gun violence hearing
in the Senate with her adamant cry that women need assault rifles to
defend themselves, wrote last year that she opposed the Violence Against
Women Act.The reason, she said at the time, was the law would create the
prospect of “false accusers” stealing taxpayer money by using shelters
and legal aid.On Wednesday, Trotter used the fear of violence against women to
support gun laws that allow access to large capacity magazines and
assault weapons in her testimony. “An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon,” she said. Trotter based her defense of gun rights on the need for women to
defend themselves against those who would commit violent acts against
them. Back in 2012, she was not as supportive of the federal
government’s efforts to protect women with VAWA. The law, she wrote on the website of the Independent Women’s Forum, could promote false accusations of domestic violence.Trotter opposed VAWA, she wrote last year, because it opened the door to false accusers wasting taxpayer funds. “Americans all want to deter violence, but we also need to protect
that foundational principle of the presumption of innocence,” said her
April 2012 post. “Needed resources like shelters and legal aid can be
taken by false accusers, denying real victims of abuse access to these
supports. That result runs directly counter to the VAWA’s spirit.”Trotter was also skeptical of the law for other reasons cited by the Republicans in Congress
who kept it from being renewed last year, including provisions allowing
illegal immigrants victimized by domestic violence to seek temporary
visas.“VAWA now touches hot button immigration issues, which have the
potential to encourage immigration fraud, false allegations of abuse,
and denial of a rebuttal by the accused spouse, whether male or female,”
she wrote.Women’s groups have for the most part been outraged by Republican delays of the VAWA renewal. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) tied
the debate over guns to VAWA on Wednesday after he presided over the
judiciary hearing, tweeting that “improving the background check system
is important in thwarting deadly domestic violence.”

An
intoxicated woman in Milwaukee says that she fired a weapon during an
argument with her niece because she had heard Wisconsin Sheriff David
A. Clarke’s radio ad saying that citizens should get “in the game” and
arm themselves instead of calling 911. A criminal complaint obtained by the Journal Sentinel indicated that 36-year-old Makisha Cooper had told police that she was following Clarke’s advice that “simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option.”Cooper said “that she knows her rights regarding having a firearm
because she heard Sheriff Clarke on the radio stating that she could own
a gun to protect herself,” according to the complaint.

Police
determined that a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun that she
presented to them had recently been fired. Cooper explained that she had
fired the gun once in connection to a fight she was having with her
niece.A preliminary breath test found that she had a blood-alcohol content of .13 percent. Cooper was charged with use of a dangerous weapon while intoxicated
and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. She could spend up to
18 months in jail and faces $20,000 in fines if convicted on both
misdemeanor counts.

“There is no parallel between this case and what I said,” Clarke said in a statement
posted on the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page. “How is
this a personal protection issue? There is a difference between
law-abiding gun owners and the drunk and stupid.”“Why did this Assistant DA undercharge this offense?” he asked. “This
suspect should have been charged with a felony, as should anyone using a
gun illegally. Under-charging, watered down prosecutions and other
social engineering experiments are a contributing factor in the cause of
gun violence in Milwaukee.”

“When the Milwaukee County DA and the Milwaukee County judiciary
begin to hammer people using guns illegally, criminals will alter their
behavior,” Clarke concluded. “Instead, these soft-on-crime advocates
choose to attack law-abiding gun owners, and their ability to be able to
protect themselves.”

Friday, January 25, 2013

So, just in case you might be worried that there might not be any
positive sides to the upswing in gun sales following the Newtown
Massacre, here’s the feel-good story of a dad who tried to use the
Second Amendment to remedy his kid’s academic problems. St. Paul,
Minnesota, dad Kirill Bartashevitch, 51, was charged with two felony
counts of “terroristic threats” after aiming his brand-new AK-47
at his daughter and wife during an argument about the 15-year-old’s
grades. Some might consider that a bit extreme, but the little slacker was getting two B’s instead of straight A’s. READ MORE »

Lt. J. Paul Vance, the face of an ongoing Connecticut State Police
investigation into worst grade school shooting in U.S. history, on
Thursday debunked media and Internet reports that Sandy Hook shooter
Adam Lanza killed his victims with handguns and not the Bushmaster XM-15
rifle that is now the focus of a proposed federal assault weapons ban. All 26 of Lanza's victims were shot with the .223 caliber
semi-automatic rifle, said Vance, who bristled at claims to the contrary
during an interview with Hearst Connecticut Newspapers."It's all these conspiracy theorists that are trying to mucky up the waters," said Vance, the longtime state police spokesman. Multiple Second Amendment and gun owner websites have attempted to
cast doubts on whether the Bushmaster XM-15, a type of AR-15 rifle that
is currently legal, was used in the Dec. 14 carnage by Lanza.Some have cited a Dec. 15 "Today" show video clip from the day after the shooting, in which NBC News Justice Department correspondent Pete Williams said that four handguns were recovered inside Sandy Hook Elementary School and that the Bushmaster rifle was found in the trunk of a car owned by Lanza's slain mother, Nancy Lanza."There's no doubt that the rifle was used solely to kill 26 people in that school," Vance said.Vance said he made it abundantly clear during his media briefings
since the tragedy that Lanza sprayed the school with rounds from his
mother's Bushmaster XM-15 rifle. "I personally articulated that probably a dozen times in Newtown," Vance said.The only time a handgun was used was when Lanza committed suicide, according to Vance.Sales of AR-15 assault rifles would be banned under the 2013 federal
Assault Weapons Ban, which was introduced Thursday on Capitol Hill and
is being sponsored by Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Christopher Murphy, as well as Newtown's new Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty.Current owners of such weapons would be required to register them with law enforcement.A message seeking comment from Bushmaster Firearms International was left Thursday at its Madison, N.C., headquarters.

Come on. What difference does it make that Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, last seen getting clowned by Hillary Clinton, wasn’t at the intelligence briefing on Benghazi?At John Kerry’s somnolent confirmation hearing for Secretary of State on Thursday, Kerry showed up
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Galt’s Gulch), on the latter’s very serious public
crusade to get to the bottom of the killing of the American Ambassador
in Benghazi — revealing that Johnson himself didn’t attend the
intelligence briefing. (Perhaps he was busy at the press conference
where Walnuts, Graham, and whatsername, WHERE’STHEGIRL, were complaining that they weren’t getting intelligence briefings, while the intelligence briefing was going on.) READ MORE »

Tiny rage-fueled harridan Michelle Malkin is VERY MAD you guys!
EXTREMELY MAD. Yr Wonkette is aware that this is typically no news
whatsoever, but today she is mad at the GOP for being “sychophantic”
to…wait for it…Hillary Clinton.Did Michelle Malkin see the same hearings we saw yesterday? The one where Rand Paul said he would have “relieved her from her post” in the imaginary land where Rand Paul is president? The one where John McCain blather-berated her endlessly,
while silently seething, STILL, that he is not president? Michelle
Malkin did not see these things! Instead, she saw a land where the GOP
was just TOO DARN DEFERENT.READ MORE »

A chain of Catholic Hospitals has beaten a malpractice lawsuit by saying that fetuses are not equivalent to human lives. According to the Colorado Independent,
in the death of a 31-year-old woman carrying twin fetuses, Catholic
Health Initiatives’ attorneys argued that in cases of wrongful death,
the term “person” only applies to individuals born alive, and not to
those who die in utero.

Lori Stodghill was seven months pregnant with twin boys on the day she died. The Independent
reported that on New Year’s Day 2006 in Cañon City, Colorado, Stodghill
was admitted to the Emergency Room at St. Thomas More Hospital
complaining of nausea, vomiting and shortness of breath. She lost
consciousness as she was being wheeled into an exam room and ER staff
were unable to resuscitate her.

It was later found that a main artery supplying blood to her lungs
was clogged, which led to a massive heart attack. Stodghill never woke
up, dying an hour after her admission to St. Thomas. Her twins died in
her womb.

Frantic
ER personnel had paged Stodghill’s doctor, obstetrician Pelham Staples,
but the doctor never answered. A wrongful-death suit filed on the
twins’ behalf by Stodghill’s husband, corrections officer Jeremy
Stodghill, maintained that Staples should have made it to the hospital
or ordered an emergency cesarian section by phone in order to save the
7-month-old fetuses.

Defending attorney Jason Langley argued in a brief he filed on behalf
of the hospital chain that the court “should not overturn the
long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the
Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado
state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born
alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based
on two unborn fetuses.”

This would appear to fly straight in the face of the doctrinal
teachings that purportedly govern the hospital chain’s policies.
Catholic Health Initiatives is a non-profit conglomerate organization
that owns roughly 170 health care facilities in 17 states, with national
assets totaling around $15 billion.

Catholic hospitals purportedly base their ethical practices on
the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church, which were
authored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. These guidelines
state that, “Catholic health care ministry witnesses to the sanctity of
life ‘from the moment of conception until death. The Church’s defense of
life encompasses the unborn.”Catholic Health Initiatives’ promotional literature states that its
mission is to “nurture the healing ministry of the Church” and be guided
by “fidelity to the Gospel.” The chain’s refusal to dispense
contraceptives, perform abortions or to offer end-of-life services has
placed it at odds in business deals attempting to acquire secularly
governed hospitals in the past.

The Independent wrote, “In 2011, the Kentucky attorney general and governor nixed a plan in
which Catholic Health sought to merge with and ultimately gain control
of publicly funded hospitals in Louisville. The officials were reacting
to citizen concerns that access to reproductive and end-of-life services
would be curtailed. According to The Denver Post,
similar fears slowed the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth’s plan over
the last few years to buy out Exempla Lutheran Medical Center and
Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in the Denver metro area.”

Nonetheless,
when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, the firm was
clear that only people who are “born alive” count as “people” as under
the law. The argument has won favorable rulings from Fremont County
District Court Judge David M. Thorson and now-retired Colorado Court of
Appeals Judge Arthur Roy.In September, Stodghill family attorneys appealed the case to the
Colorado state Supreme Court, where it is expected to be heard in
February or March.

Attempts to codify the belief that life begins at conception into law
have been unsuccessful on multiple occasions in Colorado. So-called
“fetal personhood” ballot measures have twice failed to win support from
the public. The most recent attempt to put personhood on the ballot failed to garner enough signatures to be included on the 2012 ballot.

Georgia Rep. Paul Broun allowed a torrent of raw stupid to tumble out of his mouth again this week, so let’s look at what this paragon of Americanism said this time. On Tuesday, Broun told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution“I think my role is to uphold support and defend our Constitution…The
Constitution I uphold and defend is the one I carry in my pocket all
the time, the U.S. Constitution. I don’t know what Constitution that
other members of Congress uphold, but it’s not this one. I think the
only Constitution that Barack Obama upholds is the Soviet constitution,
not this one. He has no concept of this one, though he claimed to be a
constitutional lawyer.”It’s sort of cute that he thinks he can be more inflammatory than,
say, Michele Bachmann, who set the bar for questioning the loyalty of
the Democrat Party way back in 2008,
but we imagine that for Broun, brainless hyperbole about the
President’s loyalty is just one of his job duties, to keep Teabag Nation
fed. READ MORE »

TPMIn a blog post published Thursday on its website, the Anti-Defamation League
— a group founded to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry —
condemned the use of Nazi imagery in the simmering gun debate,
highlighting rhetoric employed by conservatives and other Second
Amendment advocates.Some on the right have sought to undermine gun control proposals by
arguing that the Holocaust could have been prevented had European Jews
been sufficiently armed, a talking point the ADL staunchly rejected. "When they had weapons, Jews could sym­bol­i­cally resist, as they
did in the 1943 War­saw Upris­ing and else­where, but could not stop the
Nazi geno­cide machine," the post reads. "Gun con­trol did not cause
the Holo­caust; Nazism and anti-Semitism did."Read the entire blog post here.

A Republican legislator in New Mexico is seeking to force pregnant rape
victims to carry the pregnancy to term, claiming the fetus could be used
as "evidence" at trial.Rep. Cathrynn Brown's bill would charge a rape victim who sought an abortion with a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence," The Huffington Post reported Wednesday."Tampering with evidence consists of destroying, changing, hiding,
placing or fabricating any physical evidence with intent to prevent the
apprehension, prosecution or conviction of any person or to throw
suspicion of the commission of a crime upon another," House Bill 206 reads."Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an
abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a
fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with
the intent to destroy evidence of the crime," it adds.And while the bill is unlikely to survive the Democrat-controlled
state legislature according to HuffPost, it has enraged activists all
the same."The bill turns victims of rape and incest into felons and forces
them to become incubators of evidence for the state,” ProgressNow New
Mexico member Pat Davis told HuffPost. “According to Republican
philosophy, victims who are ‘legitimately raped’ will now have to carry
the fetus to term in order to prove their case.“Brown, who brags about being endorsed by Right to Life on her website, has yet to respond to Business Insider's request for more information about her bill.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

If you have been watching Fox News in recent weeks, you will have heard a lot of discussion about Hitler. Guests have been lining up to equate the gun legislation proposed by President Obama with Hitler, Nazis and 1930s Germany in general.

Since the Newtown, Conn., school shooting, Fox guests have been among
the loudest voices saying that any new restrictions will decimate the
Second Amendment and lead to government oppression not seen since
Hitler, Mao or Stalin.

None summed it up it better than host Sean Hannity, who said last
week: “We don’t talk a lot about — what were the intentions of our
founders and framers? And we have Stalin, um, we have Hitler, we have
countries, tyrannical. They talked a lot about that.”

Then stepped up Bob Schieffer. Speaking on a special Jan. 16
edition of CBS News, the host said this of the obstacles to passing
legislation: “Surely passing civil rights legislation, as Lyndon Johnson
was able to do, and before that, surely defeating the Nazis was a much
more formidable task than taking on the gun lobby.”

Heads on Fox started to fizz. When Hannity played the clip on his
show, he followed it up with a clip from Rush Limbaugh, who asked: “Is
there room for that in our discourse today?” Limbaugh called it
“over-the-top defamation.”

“Think of if conservatives had used that language to describe
liberals,” said The Five host Dana Perino, apparently unaware of her
employer’s programming the last few weeks. “There would be collective
outrage on the front page of the papers and demands for people to resign
and apologize.”

Last week, we listened with interest as Michele Bachmann BFF and teen-girl-cry-maker Bradlee Dean explained
that all these shootings we keep having are because of overmedication
of children. We were sympathetic to the underlying statement, but
somewhat taken aback by his proposed solution: to beat the murder and
mental illness out of our children, like God and the Bible intended. Well, luckily, Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma City has squared the
circle. Not only are all these shootings happening because of
overmedicating our children, but we are overmedicating our children
because single welfare moms want to commit Social Security fraud.
So they are doping up their children so they can get bigger checks. Our
only question is how on earth did it take five whole weeks after the
Newtown massacre for the GOP to blame women on welfare? You’re slipping,
Republicans! READ MORE »

So, back in 2007, the Texas legislature passed a law mandating that
all public schools in the state include instruction on “the Hebrew
Scriptures” and the New Testament and their impact on literature and
history. Don’t worry, supporters of the law said, we aren’t going to be
teaching religious doctrine, this law
is all about teaching the cultural importance of the Bible. And in fact
the law was written to comply with court cases governing how the Bible
can legally be taught in schools. The law states its purpose is to

teach students knowledge of biblical content, characters,
poetry, and narratives that are prerequisites to understanding
contemporary society and culture, including literature, art, music,
mores, oratory, and public policy

See? All nice and secular-like! We just want kids to be able to understand the allusions in Shakespeare, supporters said. You want kids to understand Shakespeare, dontcha? Oh, and while the law included guidelines aimed at keeping the new
Bible classes constitutional, the legislature didn’t allocate funds for
curriculum development or for teacher training, leaving districts and
teachers to make it up as they went along. Which may be why the Texas
Freedom Network published a report last
week finding that many Texas schools’ Bible classes are teaching that
the Bible is literally true, that the Earth is 6000 years old, and that
the Rapture is imminent. Oops. READ MORE »

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

After losing nearly the entire minority vote in the 2012 election, Republicans held a sensitivity training
last week instructing candidates in “successful communication with
minorities and women.” Former Secretary of State Colin Powell (R) blasted his party for ducking real policy change, pointing to the GOP’s widespread voter suppression tactics as a cause of their unpopularity.Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Inauguration Day, Powell said
more minority-friendly messaging was not enough and called for
meaningful policy changes:

When you see that 73 percent of Asian Americans, 73
percent of Hispanic Americans, 94 percent of African Americans voted for
the president and not the party, you have to ask yourself, do we have
to do something about immigration? Should we tone down some of the
things we’ve been doing? Should we really have gone after reducing the turnout of voters in those places where we thought it would make a difference?
The Republican Party should be a party that says, ‘We want everybody to
vote,’ and make it easier to vote and give them a reason to vote for
the party, not to find ways to keep them from voting at all. [...] You
can’t just say, ‘Well, we’ll fix our message.’ It’s not the
message. You have to appeal with policies and programs to these people
who are going to be the leaders of our country in a generation.

Before the election, many Republican-controlled state legislatures
passed contentious voter ID laws and restricted voting hours that
targeted urban and minority voters who tend to support Democrats. Since
the election, the Florida GOP even admitted voter suppression was the goal of their election laws. Laws in other states, such as Texas, were struck down by courts for their disproportionate impact on minorities.Powell’s tough advice built on his recent condemnation of the Republican Party for embracing “a dark vein of intolerance”.
On Monday, he noted that other Republicans privately thanked him for
his comments but were too afraid to speak out for fear of Tea Party
vengeance in the 2014 midterm elections.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) offered his Republican
counterpart an ultimatum on Tuesday afternoon: come to a deal on
filibuster reform soon or Democrats will do it on our own.“I hope that within the next 24 to 36 hours, we can get something
that we agree on,” Reid told reporters in the Capitol. “If not we’re
going to move forward on what I think needs to be done. The caucus will
support me on that.”The Democratic majority leader has vowed to weaken the filibuster but
is deferring action while he continues weeks-long negotiations with
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) over a resolution. He’s keeping
his options open to change the rules with a 51-vote majority if a deal
is not reached.Last week Reid charted out a middle path that would involve shifting some of the burden
from a majority seeking to conduct Senate business to a minority
seeking to obstruct. Currently the onus is on a majority to maintain a
51-vote quorum while seeking to advance legislation and nominees; Reid’s
approach would require a filibustering minority to keep a critical mass
of 41 senators in a chamber while stalling.As Reid weighs his options, champions of filibuster reform are wary
that Republicans will agree to any meaningful changes. And the leading
Senate champion of reform is pushing Reid to ditch his hopes of
bipartisanship and move forward with the constitutional option.“Leader Reid has left open two paths to rules changes,” Sen. Jeff
Merkley (D-OR) said in a statement late Tuesday. “While I’ve always
thought that improving how the Senate works should be an area ripe for
bipartisan agreement, it is clear at this point that the constitutional
option would produce the strongest package and make the Senate more
functional.”A McConnell aide had nothing new to report but said the Republican
conference had a full discussion of the options on filibuster reform at
private meeting Tuesday.The details of Reid’s discussions with McConnell remain a mystery.
Merkely deferred all questions about the nature of their talks and
internal Democratic discussions to Reid. He has said multiple times that
he believes Democrats have 51 votes to reform the filibuster.Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), the leading Democrat against weakening the filibuster with a bare majority, has sponsored a scaled-back plan
with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). He said he has “problems” with using what
he and Republicans dub the “nuclear option” to bypass the ordinary
two-thirds threshold and change the rules with a bare majority.Levin told reporters Tuesday that he isn’t sure if any other
Democrats are committed to opposing a rules change with a simple
majority. He said that if such a move is considered, he won’t seek to
lobby colleagues one way or another and will simply “vote my
conscience.”For now, proponents of filibuster reform are nervous about the
endgame, hopeful that Reid won’t go wobbly on the constitutional option,
and willing to accept some incremental reforms even if they don’t get
their full talking filibuster.“I — well, satisfied is a relative term,” Merkley told reporters of
Reid’s direction. “I would like to see the talking filibuster. … So
that’s kind of the gold standard. Sometimes you have to settle for the
silver or bronze standard but I’m still advocating for the gold
standard.”

NORFOLK, VA—According to numerous reports,
local 62-year-old Earl Bailey, who owns a shotgun and several boxes of
ammunition, is currently the last bastion of defense between the United
States of America and the federal government’s plot of a full-scale
takeover.Bailey, a recent retiree and a proud advocate of gun
rights, has been confirmed by multiple sources as being a true patriot,
and is, at present, the only person capable of preventing top-secret
forces within the government from striking and forcefully coercing
hundreds of millions of Americans to submit to a fascist and brutal New
World Order.Since the early 1990s, sources estimated the gun
owner has staved off innumerable large-scale government threats, all
from the center of his 12-acre ranch.“It is every American’s
right to be good and armed, and that’s a right that should always be
protected,” said Bailey, now the sole American protecting the nation
from the government’s hidden plot of disarming all citizens, gradually
gaining control of the mass media, and installing martial law throughout
the nation’s streets. “Our Founding Fathers intended for each and every
one of us to protect ourselves from tyranny. That’s what America is all
about.”“What happens when the feds show up at your front door
and start telling you how much meat you can eat or how to raise your
kids?” continued the lifetime NRA member, brandishing the very weapon
that now serves as the final hope of staving off a totalitarian state.
“Is that the future you want?”Bailey, who keeps his gun on his
person at all times and regularly patrols his property in his truck, has
reportedly struck dread into the very highest-ranking members of the
U.S. government. According to sources, top government and military
officials are fully aware that they remain unable to commence with their
oppressive, systematic subjugation of the American populace as long as
the 62-year-old owner of a rifle exists.Additional reports
confirmed that Bailey’s frequent practice of shooting his gun at empty
bean cans in his backyard has repeatedly forced government officials to
reassess both their ground and air strategies for the impending
takeover.“The way I see it, the Second Amendment’s been keeping
this nation free and secure for well over 200 years,” Bailey said,
valiantly standing in front of his home that is constantly being
monitored by CIA agents and elite Special Forces operatives, who are
told to maintain a safe distance from the formidable 62-year-old. “First
they’ll come for our guns and next…well, shoot, I don’t really plan on
ever seeing what the hell happens next.”While the federal
government is more than adequately prepared to begin the first phase of
its plan of convoying Second Amendment adherents to newly established
FEMA concentration camps, high-level members of the Obama Administration
involved in the widespread conspiracy confirmed that they have been
forced to resort to alternate methods due solely to Bailey’s heroics.“As
long as there’s someone like Earl out there with a gun and ammunition,
we are unable to carry out our attack on America,” said Maxwell
Caufield, a covert military leader in charge of the operation to turn
the country into an authoritarian, one-party state wherein the basic
rights of citizens are stripped away in order to create total government
control. “Try as we did to spread our distorted gun control
propaganda—claiming that it would protect innocent people across the
country from needless deaths—the man just wouldn’t bite. There is simply
nothing we can do about Earl and his gun, damn him.”“You’ve got
to hand it to him, really,” Caufield added. “If it weren’t for Earl,
you’d be looking at a totally different country.”................

Rocker-turned-gun rights
provocateur Ted Nugent is willing to say just about anything to attack
President Barack Obama and his administration for what he believes is an
imminent effort by the government to snatch up guns. During a recent
interview, Nugent again raised the bar, invoking a Revolutionary war
milestone to suggest that he and his "buddies" were prepared to fight
such an effort at all costs.

"I'm part of a very great experiment in self-government where we the
people determine our own pursuit of happiness and our own individual
freedom and liberty, not to be confused with the Barack Obama gang who
believes in we the sheeple and actually is attempting to re-implement
the tyranny of King George that we escaped from in 1776," Nugent said in
a recent interview with Guns.com at the NBC-sponsored Shooting,
Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show. "And if you want another Concord Bridge, I
got some buddies."

Nugent appears to be referring to the beginning of the Revolutionary
war, when colonial and British troops assembled at the North Bridge in
Concord, Mass. in 1775 broke a standoff when one soldier opened fire.
While it's still unclear which side fired the first shot, it was later
immortalized by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who suggested that "the shot
heard 'round the world" was fired by an American.

In his interview, Nugent went on to accuse Obama of having communist
ties, suggesting that gun-owning Americans needed to do something to
"fix" the fact that he was president..................

When former (Republican) senator Lamar Alexander quoted Alex Haley, the author of Roots, at the Inauguration yesterday, Breitbart-remnant writer John Nolte knew exactly what was called for! You see, Alexander was a close friend
of Haley (despite being a Republican — weird, right?), and invoked the
late writer while introducing Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor:

“The late Alex Haley, the author of ‘Roots,’ lived his
life by these six words: ‘Find the good and praise it.’ Today we praise
the American tradition of transferring or reaffirming immense power as
we inaugurate the president of the United States.”

For Nolte, it was as if the Dick Signal was lighting up the clouds on
a moonless night. The minute he heard “Find the good and praise it,” he
rushed to the Interwebs of Justice and “tweeted out the fact that
Haley’s seminal work was a fraud”:READ MORE »

Saturday, January 19, 2013

As gun rights activists celebrated the turnout at gun shows for national Gun Appreciation Day Saturday, police responded to at least thee accidental shootings that left five people injured at shows across the country.• In Indianapolis, a man shot himself when his gun went off outside a gun show. From WISH-TV:

A person who was loading a gun outside of the Indy 1500 Gun and Knife
Show at the State Fairgrounds was accidentally shot when his gun
discharged Saturday afternoon. ... The man, identified as Emory L.
Cozee, 54, was walking back to his car, was loading his .45 caliber
semi-automatic and accidentally shot himself in the hand, [police said.]

• In Raleigh, N.C., three people were injured when a shotgun went off at a gun show there. From the News & Observer:

A 12-gauge shotgun discharged shortly after 1 p.m. as its owner
unzipped its case on a table for a security officer to check it at a
security entrance at the Dixie Gun & Knife Show, according to Joel
Keith, police chief of the state Agriculture Department. Keith said
birdshot pellets hit Janet Hoover, 54, of Benson, in the right torso;
Linwood Hester, 50, of Durham, in the right hand; and Jake Alderman, a
retired Wake County sheriff’s deputy from Wake Forest, in the left hand.
Hoover and Hester were taken to WakeMed, but officials said their
injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.

• In Ohio, a dealer at a gun show accidentally fired a gun, induring one. From WJW-TV:

Jim Conrad, event organizer, said there were about 200 people there
at the time, and they heard one gun shot. Conrad said a visitor to the
event had handed an exhibitor his gun to look at. It apparently was
loaded, and while the exhibitor was looking at the gun, it accidentally
went off, hitting another man in the arm.

Meanwhile, gun rights advocates touted Gun Appreciation Day -- which
was organized to oppose efforts in Washington, D.C. to pass new gun
regulations after Newtown -- as a success. Dave Workman, a former NRA
board member, wrote that gun rights activists in Washington state showed up in big numbers at a gun show in Puyallup and a rally in Olympia."Among many of these gun owners is a newfound activism, ignited by
the gun prohibition rhetoric over the past month, and stoked by the
president’s remarks earlier in the week," he wrote.